eys, with a cloud of smoke over it. Close to it flows the river
Tyne. All around were tall engine-houses, out of which came all sorts
of curious, dreadful sounds,--groans, and hissings, and whistlings, and
clankings of iron; while high up in the air, stretching out from them,
were huge beams like the arms of great giants working up and down in all
sorts of ways; some pumping water out of the mines from the underground
streams which run into them, others lifting the baskets of coal out of
the shafts, or bringing up or lowering down the miners and other men
engaged in the works. The noises proceeded chiefly from the gins, and
pulleys, and wheels, and railways; all busy in lifting the coal out of
the pit and sending it off towards the river. The whole country looked
black and covered with railway lines, each starting away from one of
these great engine-houses which are close to the mouths of the pits.
There were rows of small wagons or trucks on them, and as the huge arms
lifted up a corve, or basket, it was emptied into the wagon till they
were filled, and then away they started, some of them without engines,
down an inclined plane towards the river. Away they went at a rapid
rate, and it seemed as if they would be carried furiously over the
cliff, or rather the end of a long, high stage into the river. On a
sudden, however, they began to go slower; then they stopped, and one
wagon went off by itself from the rest till it got to the end of the
pier; then two great iron arms got hold of it, and gently, as if it was
a baby, lifted it off the pier and lowered it down till it reached the
deck of a vessel lying underneath. When there, the bottom opened and
the coals slipped out into the hold of the vessel. Then up the wagon
went again, and another came down in the same way, till the whole train
was emptied; then off the wagons set, rolling away to be filled again.

The sailor lad observed poor Mrs Adams's anxious, eager looks.

"What is the matter now, mother?" he asked, going up to her, and
speaking in a kind tone. "You seem down-hearted at something."

"Yes; well I may be, my lad, when my little son, as good and bright a
child as ever lived, has been and got lost down in the pit. He went
down at daybreak this morning, and no one has ever seen him since. Such
a dreadful place, too, full of dark passages and pits and worked-out
panels; and then there is the bad gas, which kills so many; and then
there are the rolle